So, I came across this recently.
Swift Kicks
The CMT Music Awards show last week opened with a laugh-out-loud — or at least grin-really-wide — collaboration between T-Pain, who even talks in vocoder, and Taylor Swift called “Thug Story”. [1:30]
Unread by Me
One of the several things I admire about Roger Ebert is his economy of words. No
doubt it helps that he likely spent at least his pre-fame years on strict word counts at The Chicago Sun-Times; also that his readership has become familiar with certain phrases of his which, though perfunctory, don’t sound as judgmental as they might from an unknown source. He will often refer to a film as “adapted from the novel, unread by me”. You have to marvel at such concise, neutral disclosure. The following books, graphic novels in the sense that the phrase has come to encompass just about any work of comics with a square binding, are as yet unread by me — but likely not
for long, and I have cause to recommend each.
Vuelvo
Yes, I shall return. But I’ve had an awful dry spell in posting this month, and the
way things are going the drought may well continue.
Today’s post title is in reference (and contrast) to “No Vuelvo Más”, a track from
the debut album of singer/songwriter Ximena Sariñana. I haven’t picked up Rolling Stone regularly in some time, but I’m so glad that I came across a copy with its 4-star review of that album, Mediocre [Spanish: meh-dzhyo-kreh], last fall. After visiting Ximena’s website — mostly just a portal to her MySpace page — and listening to a handful of tracks, I was sold.
Deep Sit
A few years ago I was thrilled to find a DVD compilation of childhood favorite The Electric Company. You can read a bit about it — and in particular its crossovers with predecessor Sesame Street — on the Muppet Wiki, as well as in greater depth on Wikipedia.
I have fond memories of the show, from Rita Moreno’s familiar opening shout to the animated Adventures of Letterman shorts to Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader to Skip Hinnant in Fargo North, Decoder, to — of course — the strangely silent Spider-Man. What surprised me when I popped in the DVD was how much was unfamiliar, including the delightfully absurd soap-opera parody Love of Chair. The first episode of the serial is up on YouTube, albeit bootlegged; one minute long, just when you think it’s started running on fumes it finishes with a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. Some interesting but spoilery trivia follows in the comments section below.
Related: Brittality • This Is the Title of This Blogpost • Muppet Monday
?!?
I have no idea why images have been failing to appear, leaving those charming little question-mark boxes. It’s not happening with any rhyme or reason that I’m aware of; on a few occasions pictures that disappeared have reappeared before I can even check the post to ensure that links to Picasa (Google/Blogger’s photo-hosting service) are correct. I’ve taken down posts that largely depend on graphics and I won’t republish them until this gets figured out because I’m just sick of having to constantly do so.